A Neural Network Playground

Neural networks have been discussed a lot around here, but do you know how they work? 

Well, one of the best ways to learn something is to play around with a version of it that lets you visualize what’s going on under the hood. Daniel Smilkov and Shan Carter built this visualizer that lets you do just that. 

Hit the play button and you’ll see the neural network try to classify the dots based on whether they’re positive or negative. You can use different data features, add layers and neurons, and try different data sets to see what results you get. A neural network that works for one kind of data doesn’t necessarily work so well on a different arrangement, so even with the rapid feedback it can be tricky to find the best settings. 

Incidentally, the flexibility of generative processes is one of the things I like about the topic in general. Play is an effective way to learn how something works, and being able to see what each individual neuron is outputting makes it much easier to grasp what is going on under the hood.